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Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

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Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

#131

Post by anon291 »

lisper wrote: post #32
nancyhn wrote: post #4

The end of both legacy admissions and race-based admissions makes me feel hopeful that we're finally pivoting to a productive, merit-based approach.

I hate to burst your bubble but unfortunately this just kicks the can down the road. How do you measure merit? Because [EDIT] many measures of "merit" (was: standardized testing) can be (and often are) biased by race, cultural background, and economic status. For example: Student 1 has built a fully automated chip manufacturing line in his basement. Student 2 has build a robot that solves a maze in fifteen minutes (a…

I'm confused here. Both facts are salient (what was built and under which circumstances was it built) to any discussion of merit. The main complaint I see here is that admissions committees should use as much information as possible, which I doubt anyone disagrees with. What is racist is someone saying 'Oh, student 2 is black, thus without any further information, I'm going to assume he's poor and from Sudan'.

Case in point, we had a very wealthy black student in my college. This woman was not disadvantaged in any way, yet she played the race card all the time in order to claim a disadvantaged background. I'm talking about a family that would take their kids to France and England to summer. That level of wealth, yet framing all her accomplishments as if she came from the inner city. That's disingenuous, yet the (now-gone) affirmative action camp would have gladly taken her checking the 'African-American/Black' checkbox as a sign that all her accomplishments should be judged on a poor disadvantaged upbringing. How is that not racist?

Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

#132

Post by bluepod4 »

lisper wrote: post #32
nancyhn wrote: post #4

The end of both legacy admissions and race-based admissions makes me feel hopeful that we're finally pivoting to a productive, merit-based approach.

I hate to burst your bubble but unfortunately this just kicks the can down the road. How do you measure merit? Because [EDIT] many measures of "merit" (was: standardized testing) can be (and often are) biased by race, cultural background, and economic status. For example: Student 1 has built a fully automated chip manufacturing line in his basement. Student 2 has build a robot that solves a maze in fifteen minutes (a…

I believe that GP would admit the child of billionaires. People who promote the meritocracy myth have an agenda and are sticking to it. Do you really think you can change GP’s mind with logic?

Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

#133

Post by simiones »

LegitShady wrote: post #125
ahi wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large alumni donations can and often do increase the cost of education of all the other students. They frequently lead to large capital investments that then have uncovered operational costs. I used to work for one of the wealthiest universities with 100s of millions in capital improvements annually that couldn't provide functional HVAC and a fresh coat of paint to the buildings it had.

This is a little bit ridiculous. There is no connection between alumni donations and capital investments except decisions that university leadership chooses to make. The issue isn't the donations, its the university leadership thats choosing to make large capital expenditures. The donations could go to other things and do go to other things. Any blame you're putting on the donations actually belongs to the people run…

How often does anyone donate millions of dollars with no strings attached, especially to a university?

Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

#134

Post by melvinmelih »

ahi wrote: post #73
CSMastermind wrote: post #16

Don't legacy admissions often mean that their parents have donated significantly to the University? In a sense wouldn't that just mean that those students are essentially paying a very high premium to attend there and subsidizing the education of all the other students? I'm not against abolishing them but I do wonder if this will have any impact on alumni donations.

Large alumni donations can and often do increase the cost of education of all the other students. They frequently lead to large capital investments that then have uncovered operational costs. I used to work for one of the wealthiest universities with 100s of millions in capital improvements annually that couldn't provide functional HVAC and a fresh coat of paint to the buildings it had.

> They frequently lead to large capital investments that then have uncovered operational costs

The problem is not the high amounts, but most donations can only be used for a specific purpose, so even though the endowments are high, the actual working capital will be a lot lower.

Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

#135

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #40
philip1209 wrote: post #20

Next step: Ending use of athletic ability in admissions.

Sports programs at university pay for themselves. They pay for themselves because people buy tickets to games, which they do to see exceptional athletes.

> Sports programs at university pay for themselves.

I don't see why this even matters (besides the fact that it's not really true except for the biggest sports at some of the biggest sport schools).

The debate is over whether it's fair that some students get the benefits that come with being an Ivy League grad without having the academic prowess to otherwise be admitted. Whether or not they are able to cover their costs is immaterial to that discussion.

I actually heard someone else make a similar argument for children of big donors, i.e. that schools rely on those big donors for their missions. And I'm like "You're just arguing that you're cool with nearly all forms of corruption and bribery as long as the money is put to a good use."

Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

#136

Post by hnburnsy »

lisper wrote: post #32
nancyhn wrote: post #4

The end of both legacy admissions and race-based admissions makes me feel hopeful that we're finally pivoting to a productive, merit-based approach.

I hate to burst your bubble but unfortunately this just kicks the can down the road. How do you measure merit? Because [EDIT] many measures of "merit" (was: standardized testing) can be (and often are) biased by race, cultural background, and economic status. For example: Student 1 has built a fully automated chip manufacturing line in his basement. Student 2 has build a robot that solves a maze in fifteen minutes (a…

Is this a need-blind or need-aware institution?

If need-aware, does the admitting class have enough full pay to cover the costs of those needing scholarships (wouldn't want to actually tap into that tax-free endowment)? If they need more full pay, then S1, if there are already enough full pay, then S2.

Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

#137

Post by ghaff »

el_nahual wrote: post #67
mlyle wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time, we're getting rid of testing in admissions decisions. So instead we're in an era of squishy, difficult-to-judge metrics... and of course, the places where one could stand out-- interesting stories on one's transcript or essay-- are increasingly being evaluated by AI.

The cynical(?) explanation is that it is precisely because of the dismantling of standardized testing that getting rid of legacy admissions tenable...because it means schools can still proxy for class in admissions decisions (except veiled as extracurriculars, or "oh, this student knows calculus" in boston/sf). If Harvard or USC were on the list I'd wager this to be the case, but MIT, Mellon & Pitt are serious school…

Some schools probably have a higher academic floor. The other thing that happens is that a fair number of good but not spectacular students who nonetheless want to get into the best school they can will put somewhere like Harvard on their list even though they know it's a long shot. If they have so-so SATs (especially in math) they won't even try for MIT--and probably wouldn't like it anyway.

Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

#138

Post by makeitdouble »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #40
philip1209 wrote: post #20

Next step: Ending use of athletic ability in admissions.

Sports programs at university pay for themselves. They pay for themselves because people buy tickets to games, which they do to see exceptional athletes.

Arguably a lot of categories would pay for themselves, but I'm assuming you don't have a Youtuber or pro gamer program at Carnegie Mellon for instance.

Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

#139

Post by banana_feather »

dotancohen wrote: post #57
banana_feather wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I do wonder if this will have any impact on alumni donations. Wonder not. "[T]here is no statistically significant evidence that legacy preferences impact total alumni giving." https://production-tcf.imgix.net/app/uploads/2016/03/0820191...

Lack of evidence is hardly evidence of lacking.

You are confused; evidence of absence is not absence of evidence. Unless you can point to a problem with the methodology, failure to discover a relationship between A and B is indeed evidence that A and B are not related. You're suggesting they would have to prove a negative for there to be evidence.

"Using annual panel data covering 1998 to 2008 for the top one hundred universities, we show that, after controlling for year, institution size, public/private status, income, and a proxy for alumni wealth, more than 70 percent of the variation in alumni giving across institutions and time can be explained. The coefficients all have the expected signs and there is no statistically significant evidence that legacy preferences impact total alumni giving."

Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

#140

Post by DaSHacka »

ghaff wrote: post #44
philip1209 wrote: post #20

Next step: Ending use of athletic ability in admissions.

Why should athletics be uniquely disadvantaged among activities that aren't exclusively academic? Perhaps you think that a test result is all that should count though in which case we'll have to agree to disagree.

I'd assume it's because academic ability and knowledge makes more sense for determining admissions in an academic context, and has a higher chance of being relevant after the student graduates. This is unlike athletics where unless you go pro, the skill becomes functionally useless once you enter the workforce.
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